The First Day
by Mousme
Summary: Part 3 of the Garden 'verse. Dean goes missing before his first day of school.


Title: **The First Day**

Summary: Dean goes missing on his first day of school.

Characters: Sam, Dean, Lisa

Rating: PG

Wordcount: 1,902

Disclaimer: I'm still waiting on the permits...

Warnings: Enough schmoop to make your teeth rot in your head, and angst.

Neurotic Author's Note #1: I am dealing with some stress-induced writer's block, so I decided to write some self-indulgent schmoop.

Neurotic Author's Note #2: This is part of the a href="."Garden 'verse/a, so you'll want to read at least the first story if you want to know what's going on. If you don't want to read it, what you need to know is that Dean has been de-aged and is five years old right now, and Sam and Lisa have hooked up, making everything awkward.

Neurotic Author's Note #3: Also, I have Made Shit Up™ about some legal proceedings in this. Please don't hold it against me. ;)

* * *

"I can't find Dean."

Sam freezes where he's been preparing the coffee at the counter by the sink. Lisa doesn't sound overly worried, not yet, but then she doesn't understand what a long history of bad endings he and Dean have, all of which have started with one or the other disappearing without explanation. He puts down the carafe, water sloshing over the side, and determinedly doesn't panic. There is no reason to freak out yet, not before doing some checking first.

"What?"

Lisa pulls her bathrobe closed, re-tying the sash more tightly around her waist. "I sent Ben to get him up, so we can get an early start, but Ben says he's not in his room. I checked the bathroom and all over the house, and he's not here."

Shit. Sam forces himself to breathe. He glances at the clock, notes that they still have plenty of time before the school bus gets here to take both kids to school. It's the first day: Ben is starting grade five, Dean's going to kindergarten for the second time in his life. He's been talking about it non-stop for the past week.

"He's not in the yard?"

"I looked through the window but I haven't gone out yet. I didn't see anything —weird," she says, and that goes a long way to reassuring him.

Lisa might not be a hunter, but she's seen more than most women, and he's taught her obsessively what to look for, what the signs of the paranormal are. She knows how to salt a door, how to make a devil's trap, and she reluctantly agreed to let him teach her and Ben how to safely use a shotgun filled with rock salt shells and a handgun. Both she and Ben can recite a simple exorcism by heart. It's not that there's any direct threat —Bobby's keeping an ear to the ground, and Cas has declared the entire Braeden clan off-limits, and Cas' word still carries enough weight these days to make the majority of supernatural creatures keep their distance— but Sam is no one's fool. Letting your guard down is a surefire way to get someone you love killed. Lisa indulges him for the most part, and doesn't hesitate to tell him when his paranoia starts getting in the way of their lives. Mostly he's grateful to her.

He nods at her words, wipes his hands on his jeans. "Okay. I'll go look for him. You okay to get Ben ready for school?"

"Been doing it on my own for years." She takes the sting out of her words with a kiss, then shoves him toward the kitchen door. "Go find our kid."

And that's it, right there. Dean is their kid now, even if he didn't start out that way. He's still Sam's brother, but the paperwork also makes him their child, ensuring that no one out there will ever be able to take Dean away from him ever again. Even now, just thinking about it makes warmth blossom in his chest, threatening to take his breath away.

It's promising to be a beautiful day. The sky is a clear, crisp blue, devoid of clouds, and there's a thin film of ice on the lawn, the morning dew clinging in frozen droplets to each blade, crunching under his feet as he walks. His breath hangs before him in the air before dissipating in thin wisps of condensation. In a few hours the sun will have warmed everything up, making even a light jacket unnecessary, but for now it's not hard to spot the trail of smaller footprints and broken blades of grass making its way all the way across the lawn and to the garage. Sam smiles to himself, feeling the knot in his chest come loose, then steals up to the small window by the side door to the garage and peeks inside.

Dean is sitting behind the Impala, which they rarely take out these days except for special occasions, with Tom held tightly in his arms. He's wedged in a corner, face buried in the cat's thick yellow fur, and Sam's heart clenches at the thought that he's been here alone the whole time with only a cat for company. He opens the door softly, makes his way over to the Impala, lays one hand on her hood, cool from disuse but still solid and reliable and familiar. Still home, no matter where else they live. Dean doesn't look up from where he's holding onto Tom, but Sam can tell he knows he's there. He lowers himself carefully to the floor next to his brother, back against the wall, legs wedged uncomfortably against the Impala's front wheel.

"Hey."

Dean doesn't answer, but Sam hears his breath hitch a little. Tom wriggles in his arms, purrs and head-butts him in the chin. Sam waits a few moments before talking again.

"Looks like you've got yourself a pretty cosy hideout here. You feel like telling me why you're out here? It's your first day of school, I thought you were excited about that?"

Dean shakes his head. "I don't want to go."

Maybe Sam shouldn't be surprised. It's not like Dean was ever a fan of school when they were growing up, there's no reason for that to have changed. It's just that he seemed to be happy about getting to be with other kids his age, was excited about going on the bus with Ben and the other kids. Sam reaches out and rubs two fingers between Tom's ears, making the cat purr even more loudly.

"Why not?"

Dean shrugs. "I don't like school."

Sam exhales slowly. "Are you sure? You haven't even tried it yet." He can't be sure if this isn't latent memories resurfacing, of switching from school to school, of never quite fitting in, of failing class after class until he finally just dropped out and got his GED years later.

Dean fiddles with the Velcro on his shoe, and Sam tries to ignore the irritating scraping sound as he pulls it open and closes it again, over and over. "I won't like it. Tom won't be there, and I won't know anybody, and nobody likes the new kid anyway."

"Aw, Dean," Sam doesn't know how to even begin to make this work. "C'mere." He reaches out, wraps an arm around Dean's shoulders, and his brother lets himself be pulled into Sam's lap, curling up against his chest while Tom slides free and jumps up to lie on the hood of the Impala. "You won't be the new kid, I promise. It's the first day of class, and it's kindergarten. You know what that means? It means everybody in your class is going to be new."

"Why can't I just stay home with you and Tom?" Dean turns big green eyes up at him, and Sam will be damned if he's not tempted to just acquiesce and let him do whatever he wants, because really, Dean has earned the right a hundred thousand times over.

"Because I have to go to work, and Tom isn't legally allowed to babysit you. Come on, you have to go to school. Otherwise Lisa and I will get in trouble for not raising you right."

"But I'm not supposed to go to school," Dean says, his words muffled as he buries his face in Sam's shirt.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm no good at school anyway. I'm supposed to stay home and take care of you, Sammy. It's my job. I can't take care of you if I'm at school and you're not."

"Is that what this is about?" Sam reaches up to pet Dean's hair, feels a shudder go through his small frame. "You don't have to take care of me anymore, buddy. Not the way you used to. It's my turn to take care of you for a while. That's only fair, right? That I get a turn at it?"

"Dad says I'm wasting my time at school. Watching out for you is more important than school."

Not for the first time, Sam feels a surge of impotent rage bubble up in his chest at their long-dead father. Damn John Winchester and his crusade against evil. He forces himself to take another deep breath, to remind himself that their father had no idea what he was doing to his kids, that he was doing the best he could with what he had. He pulls Dean closer, rests his cheek on top of his head.

"You know that was a long time ago, right? Things are different now. I'm watching out for you, and school is important. It's a fresh start for all of us, you know. It's the first day for a lot of things. For you, for Ben, and for me and Lisa too. Besides, I bet now that you don't have to worry about me being safe, you'll like school a lot more. I'll be at work, with lots of guys to look out for me, and the bus will bring you home before I finish, so you can keep an eye on me after school. Does that sound like a good compromise?"

"I guess."

"All right, then." Sam laboriously leverages himself up from the ground, stamps his foot to get rid of the pins and needles in his legs without dropping his brother. "Let's go in and have breakfast. I'll tell you what. How about, since this is the first day of school, we take the Impala? I'll drop you and Ben off right in front of the school, so everyone can see what a cool car you have. Sound good?"

This time Dean nods more enthusiastically against his shirt as Sam carries him back toward the house, the cat following close on his heels. "Yeah. Can Tom come?"

"No, I'm afraid cats are way too independent to ever want to go to school," Sam lets himself back in through the kitchen door, gives a relieved-looking Lisa a reassuring wink over Dean's head, "but he'll be waiting for you when you get home, and you can tell him all about your day. Okay?"

"Okay."

Sam lowers him into a chair at the kitchen table. "I don't know about anyone else, but I am craving blueberry pancakes." He looks over at Ben, who's making bologna sandwiches for the day. Lisa's a big believer in making sure her kids learn to do things for themselves at an early age, and since Dean taught Sam to make his own sandwiches when he was not much older than Dean is now, Sam sees no reason not to go along with it. "What do you think? A treat for the first day of school? Get things started out right. And then I promised Dean I'd drive the two of you to school in the Impala."

Ben cuts one sandwich in half and slides it into a Ziplock bag. "Yeah, okay," he agrees, expression carefully neutral, but Sam can see through it. Ben has loved the Impala ever since he and Dean drove up in it that first time four years ago.

"Excellent. I do like it when things all come together," he says lightly, ruffles Dean's hair, then pulls out a bowl to make the pancake mix before rummaging in the fridge for eggs and milk.

Lisa hands him a mug of coffee, slides an arm around his waist. "Everything all right?" she murmurs.

He nods, leans over to kiss her, cradling an egg in the palm of his hand. "Everything's just fine."


End file.
